It is Free for All Friday. Welcome to the Council of Trent podcast. It's been a while. It's been a minute. I don't know what happened. I've just had a lot going on. I feel like I have not done a traditional Free for All Friday in a bit. I was in a little bit of a slump. I'm not sure, you know, these things just happen. I think, you know, I've had a lot of personal things going on and a lot of things also

work going on. And I think that Free for All Friday took the brunt of it a little bit. I mean,

there's still a lot of great content. I like sharing with you guys here on Friday, maybe other

interviews that I've done that I think you all would benefit from. But I feel like, I don't know,

something in my heart. I wasn't totally feeling it.

But I think it's coming back around.

I'm doing a little bit more to get refreshed, to get refocused, you know, spiritually, emotionally, physically also.

I'm going to be honest with you, though.

I was struggling a little bit of thinking about what to do a free for all Friday.

I mean, I have done, I must have done over 300 of these episodes, at least over 250, probably over 300 now. We've done over 1,000 episodes of the show. And originally Free for All Friday just began because Council of Trent was an audio podcast. And so I saw it as a way, oh, people who aren't Catholic might tune in and listen to the

Free for All Friday and then listen to the main episodes and help people out. And I thought,

and also I just, I got a lot of fun stuff to talk about. But now it is really strange how

Council of Trent has transitioned over the last eight years into being, the brunt of it is being a video essay channel. And we've reached a lot

of people on YouTube. We get about three million views a month now. And so I'm so blessed to see how God

has used it to help so many people. And to be frank, I don't like being on the internet a ton.

I would even encourage people sometimes to listen to the podcast episodes more than watching

YouTube because maybe it can just keep you off the internet when you don't want to be there,

when you don't need to be there. So I've thought about it. I'm like, oh, should I keep doing

free for all Friday? Should I just let it go? I can't make it a part of the YouTube channel because those videos would totally collapse.

You all who are faithful podcast listeners, you're much more faithful than people on YouTube. YouTube, it's hard to wrangle people in. They just click whatever the algorithm gives them. you subscribe on a podcast, tend to be a faithful listener. And I appreciate. Some of you have been listening for like eight years on podcast. Thank you for your support. I really appreciate it. If you want to help us grow more even, go to trendornpodcast.com. Become a subscriber there. That's always helpful. But I've decided, no, I want to keep doing free-for-all Friday. It might not be a big glamorous production, but it's fun.

I can just talk to you guys.

I mean, this is how it was like mid-2010s, podcast, turn on the microphone, you know, just talk to people.

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